


A Parallel Life

by Nebulad



Series: Sataareth [1]
Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: F/M, Fluff, Soulmate AU, mild violence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-02-24
Updated: 2016-02-24
Packaged: 2018-05-22 23:27:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,336
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6097427
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Nebulad/pseuds/Nebulad
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The very first time Tama felt another person with her, she was thirteen. Certainly she had never felt truly alone, but she became aware that it was an individual entirely separate from her a few years after she came into her magic. Whoever it was, they were laughing. It was loud and from the belly and with perfect clarity and not in her own voice, Tama thought: <i>Ataash owes me dessert, the stupid dick.</i><br/>===<br/>Hissrad was fifteen when he suddenly jumped, like his palm had been burned. <i>Have to be more careful or I’m gunna burn the fucking barn down,</i> he thought; well, at the time, he had no fucking idea what he’d thought— he’d learn later that the words were Orlesian, but at that moment he felt a sting of pain and thought some gibberish in a voice that wasn’t his own.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Parallel Life

I.

The very first time Tama felt another person with her, she was thirteen. Certainly she had never felt truly alone, but she became aware that it was an individual entirely separate from her a few years after she came into her magic. Whoever it was, they were laughing. It was loud and from the belly and with perfect clarity and not in her own voice, Tama thought: _Ataash owes me dessert, the stupid dick._

She was terrified that it was a demon and screamed for her father to save her— he was a mage, the best she knew, and he would know how to banish this second self— and her mother came unbidden. She’d felt her daughter’s alarm ring through her like a bell; Tamassran Senior hadn’t heard another voice in her head and heart until her only child had been born.

It took them a whole morning to explain to her that she was hearing her other half, and that no, they didn’t know who it was or how to make it stop. “It could be a child, lover, a rival, a friend, even a stranger you’ll only share a moment with,” Adaar explained in his rasping voice, like his tongue scratched the words into stone. There could be no communication between the two, but in moments of great joy, sadness, or rage, Tama wouldn’t be alone.

 

II.

Hissrad was fifteen when he suddenly jumped, like his palm had been burned. _Have to be more careful or I’m gunna burn the fucking barn down,_ he thought; well, at the time, he had no fucking idea what he’d thought— he’d learn later that the words were Orlesian, but at that moment he felt a sting of pain and thought some gibberish in a voice that wasn’t his own.

The Ben-Hassrath he studied under frowned when he reported it. He tried to look brave and unaffected, but he felt his palms sweat like they hadn’t done since the others had taken him to see a _tamassran_ for the first time. _What if it was a demon? What if he was a_ saarebas?

“Say nothing to the others. We will observe you,” was the only answer Hissrad received. It festered inside him, this second dimension that was him and not him— he didn’t recognize the voice or the words, and didn’t seem to be able to speak with it or even feel it all the time. It didn’t get better or worse, however, and the Ben-Hassrath seemed unconcerned about it after Bull threw himself into his studies to try and compensate for this… _thing_ , this failure that he bore, not of his own doing.

It beat the shit out of actually being a _saarebas_ though.

 

III.

Tamassran Adaar woke up in the middle of the night and started destroying her room without any idea why she was doing it. She felt furious and helpless and this horrible sense of _loss,_ so she tore at the wallpaper and started knocking over bookshelves and little wooden trinkets and smashing mirrors, never once stopping to consider the reason for it all. Her nails made scratches in the wood and she gnashed her teeth at nothing, but oddly enough her magic remained completely controlled. The destruction came from her _blood_ and from her core, her head dizzy with this impotent _rage._

It stopped gradually, with her parents framed in the doorway and watching her closely but not intervening. She stood stock still in the middle of what remained of a slightly cluttered but otherwise clean room, surrounded by torn up furniture and shattered glass and broken curtains. She took in deep, gulping breaths, her knees trembling so hard she could barely stand up. Her body _hurt,_ stung all over like she had a thousand tiny cuts and bruises. _Vasaad, Vasaad you fucking moron, you stupid fucking cock shit son of a_ _ **bitch**_ _, Vasaad. I killed them all Vasaad, every single one of those Tal-Vashoth monsters, I’m so sorry Vasaad._

And for the first time, Tama was afraid of her second self.

 

IV.

Hissrad had been in solitary confinement for weeks while the Triumvirate tried to decide what to do with him. _Ten years,_ one had hissed almost right outside the door, while others watched him with barely concealed suspicion. He’d dealt for too long in the _technically_ legal and spur of the moment tactics that skirted the very edges of the Qun, so much that it sometimes had to flex a little to hold him in it still.

That was why he was here after all.

 _Ten years,_ another voice had agreed stonily.

So Hissrad waited to be told if he was gunna be some gutless labourer for the rest of his life, who needed a caretaker to make sure he didn’t accidentally wander off a cliff and into the ocean. He’d toyed with the idea of doing that on purpose, but in the end figured he’d just end up swimming to shore. He wasn’t any use to anyone dead, and it wasn’t his right to decide if he was still of use to them or not.

He was counting the dust mites in the air _(one, two, who the fuck even cares, four—)_ when he was suddenly swept with longing for wide open fields with big grass— all the way up to his hips and greener than all the ugly jewellery the women in the cities wore— and bales of golden hay that turned pink when the sun went down. He felt claustrophobic and blinded by a sparkling falseness— stone meticulously shaped down and smooth, jewels cut flawlessly to glimmer like a still pond, silk hemmed so pristinely straight and lying _just so_ …

 _Je me languis de la maison,_ his happier half sighed. He’d picked up Orlesian real quick thanks to them, and could now easily understand what they were talking about. They missed their home.

 _Same here,_ he thought back.

 

V.

The Inquisitor was tall and… he’d probably say elegant. He did just watch her burn several Venatori to death, and _clearly_ those deaths were sort of a personal hit for her, but when she approached him she glided smooth as water over the uneven, bloodied sand and corpses.

She was all long lines— long Orlesian braid, long legs, long jaw, long nose, all flowing together like a river— and Bull allowed himself half a second to appraise. She was Tal-Vashoth so like _fuck_ he was ever gunna make a move, but it didn’t hurt to look and she barely seemed to notice. Down south there weren’t a lot of people like them (like _her,_ and like he happened to be but not quite, not a monster, bound and safe through the Qun), and she was sizing him up.

He laughed, to put her at ease. _“Shit._ So it’s true— the Chantry must just _love_ you,” he teased, unconsciously reaching back to resheath his weapon _(if she came at him, her stomach was a weak spot and as a mage she’d probably protect her arms before she bothered with her core)._

She froze like she’d heard what he was thinking, her eyes relaxing from their suspicious narrow and widening. It was almost wild, like an animal who only just realized that it’d wandered into an ambush— still she didn’t throw her weight around or try to get away from him. She was like a statue whose head was the only thing that’d been brought to life.

“Shit,” she breathed in the same dreamy way she’d wished for home, and Bull was hit all at once with everything— every mumbled curse as she accidentally set her _antaam-sar_ on fire, swearing at that snotty nosed fucking kid one farm over who threw bugs at her, the first time she’d ever got hit with a sword and whispered _fuck_ so pitifully Bull had been scared for the whole day that his mystery dimension was just _gone—_

“Shit,” he agreed, for lack of anything more profound or impressive to say. “Shit, fuck, damn.”

**Author's Note:**

> v3ilfire ruined my goddamn life with an au where soulmates hear each other's thoughts and I mean. this happened because seheron happened and I just love IB.
> 
> nebulaad.tumblr.com is me and this is posted on there. plz dont reblog from stream blogs it throws me into fits.


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